For the Love of Flowers
by RawMaterial
Summary: The Wizarding World is on the cusp of war. Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix and Voldemort's Death Eaters fight a war in the shadows with an unfortunate Harry Potter struggling to survive and search for answers as he's stuck between them. At the same time he's hunted by an ancient and bloodthirsty yokai searching for the other half of her soul. Order of the Phoenix AU. Novel Length
1. Chapter 1: Soul Searching

**For the Love of Flowers**

 **Disclaimer: Both Harry Potter and Touhou Project belong to their respective owners.**

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Soul Searching**

A sea of gold and green stretched out in every direction for as far as the eye could see. The sight of the perpetually in bloom Sunflowers and aptly named 'Garden of the Sun' brought a smile to Yuuka's face as she diligently worked her way through the garden, checking each flower for imperfections.

The flowers closest to her swayed slightly, shaken by an invisible breeze, dancing along to the nameless tune she hummed.

Normally the garden would be awash with the sounds of life as humans, fae and yokai alike partook in its beauty. Now it lay silent, none willing to leave the warmth of their hearths to brave the cold, winter winds.

It almost made Yuuka want to shiver in delight. For a time, none would disturb her and she would be free to enjoy the beauty of nature's works. Her works.

Swept up in her work as she was, Yuuka almost forgot her ire and the one who had caused it. Almost.

"I don't know why you bother coming out in the cold to do this, Yuuka. The Garden doesn't need your care. It's blessed by the gods, literally," said the blonde woman floating behind Yuuka. The woman's feet hovered inches above the heads flowers, who in turn stretched above Yuuka's own head.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand, o' Guardian of Borders. I find solace and pleasure in personally caring for my domain. Especially after having to deal with a certain, irritating, _pest_ , Yukari," said Yuuka.

Depending on who in Gensokyo you asked about the nature of Yuuka and Yukari's relationship, you would receive different answers. Some would tell you that the pair shared a professional courtesy, each respecting the others power. Others would tell you that they were bitter enemies because of how often a confrontation between the two would disintegrate into blows.

To Yuuka, however, the point was moot. Perhaps, centuries ago they had shared a close bond, one forged by the circumstances of her birth, but now it was a rare time indeed that both would be awake at once, and even rarer that fate should deem their paths to cross.

A crafty smile appeared on Yukari's face and with a flick of her wrist, the fan she carried disappeared with a snap before disappearing into the sleeve of her dress. The air around her hissed as she plummeted to the earth, plumes of dust shooting up as her feet met soil.

"Come now," Yukari cooed into Yuuka's ear. "You're not still mad at me, are you?"

Yuuka allowed the sickly clipping in her hand to fall to the earth, crushing it into the soil with the heel of her boot. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Perfect," chirped Yukari, deftly hopping to the side to avoid the blast of energy shot by one of the sunflowers. The blast gouged a hole in the earth, an act that would have showered both women in dirt if not for the parasols they both carried.

"Now, now," Yukari said, wagging a gloved finger at Yuuka as she placed her free hand on the stalk of a flower that had been bruised in the explosion, "you shouldn't value life so lightly." When she pulled her hand away, the bruise had healed, revealing a clean, unbroken stem.

Yuuka's humming died as she turned slowly turned around, eyes narrowed. Her parasol, now closed, held as if it was a sword, she pointed at Yukari. The sunflowers around her responded to her will and as one, turned about to face her target.

Yukari was moving before Yuuka even began to turn, sensing the growing agitation of the surrounding vegetation. With a kick, she took to the air once more, her fan sliding free of her sleeve and snapping open.

There was a silent pause as the two women regarded each other. Eventually it was broken as Yuuka lowered her umbrella, the flowers returning to their natural state.

"I will not challenge you here, out of respect for the flowers, but do not speak to me again of morality, demon," she spat, fury in her eyes. "Though both our hands are stained red, it is you who has destroyed the time line, dooming us all. It Is because of you that I was never born in the Outside realm."

"Well, that's not exactly true. Your soul _was_ born, just as male this time. Besides, I'd think you'd like him. Very capable and self-sufficient. Most certainly didn't need me in order to survive this time around."

"That's because he never had to become me!"

All of Yuuka's anger seemed to fade away after her outburst, her shoulders slumping as she sunk to the ground, her skirt pooling about her. Her parasol, open once more, shadowed her face. When she spoke, her voice was flat and devoid of all the previous emotion she had displayed.

"I am fading, Yukari. I can feel myself slipping closer and closer to the edge oblivion with each passing day and it's all because you chose to interfere in the life of one measly human."

Yukari pursed her lips as she mentally weighed options while observing the flower yokai before her that was arguably her eldest friend.

"Are you still interested in learning sorcery?" She eventually asked, shoving the doubts she held to the back of her mind.

"Pardon?"

"Sorcery. You know, the magic that those troublesome magicians control." Yukari gestured to the snow-covered woods beyond the borders of the Garden of the Sun. "I remember you followed around that troublesome witch for quite a while before giving up. So, are you still interested in learning?"

Yuuka's parasol tilted slightly, the shadows covering her face parting enough to reveal her eyes. "What do you know, Yukari?"

"Well… It may or may not be possible for you to save yourself by consuming the other half of your soul and then coming back to me to put it back together."

The parasol cast her face into shadow once more. "Do not raise my hopes for naught, demon. I harbor no doubt that you won't give me the boy's location for free."

Yukari snorted at that, a very inelegant action that was out of place in a place where the elder and more powerful you were, the more polite you were expected to act. "I don't know why you persist in calling me 'demon'. That's a name that the human's apply to you, not me."

"Anyways," she continued, "you've been the only constant in my life for this past millennia. And although things have indeed been quite interesting as of late with our current Harukei Shrine Maiden, I have no wish to see you die. I'll give you the child's location and nothing more, all I require is a single promise."

"You will not merely take me to this child, why? And what promise would you have of me?"

Yukari's expression softened as she gazed upon the shrouded and hunched from of her friend.

"You look weary, Yuuka. I would not hold you to this plane of existence simply for my own selfish reasons. As for the promise I require? I ask that you only re-claim your soul and do not butcher your way through the outside world in search of your target."

Silence stretched out between them as Yuuka mulled over Yukari's request. Eventually, she sighed and rose to her feet, dusting off her skirt as she did so.

"Very well," Yuuka said at last. "I agree to your terms. Now, the child's location."

"Excellent," Yukari said happily. "The other half of your soul is in Great Britain. More specifically, it seems to spend a large amount of time within the magical communities hidden there."

With a wave of her hand, a gap in reality opened beside Yukari. With pink ribbons tied in bows on each end, the tear would have looked almost welcoming if not for the thousands of violet eyes staring out into the outside world. Hefting her parasol, Yukari walked towards the void.

"Wait."

"Oh?" Yukari paused, one foot in the gap and turned her head to glance at Yuuka.

Yuuka did not look up as she spoke, her voice frosty, having chosen to return to caring for the flowers.

"You are the guardian of Gensokyo and I respect you for doing what must be done, Yukari. However, if you have set me on a quest of folly…" Yuuka's grip tightened upon her own parasol, her free hand having paused. "If it becomes clear that I shall fade away, I shall begin a game unlike any the Outside realm has seen before."

"So tell me, o' Guardian of Gensokyo, if it comes to it, will you allow their world to burn to preserve ours?"

Yukari hadn't finished speaking by the time she had disappeared into the gap she had created, yet her words echoed out through the land of Gensokyo, sounding in the hearts of those who heard it rather than their ears.

"All life is sacred, and yet as yokai, our very nature demands we take it to survive. It is for this reason, as magic fled the land and we were forced to kill more and more too simply exist, that we retreated into obscurity. So, no, Kazami Yuuka, I will not intervene and risk the lives of all who depend on me."

* * *

 _For the sake of humanity and for the sake of life, it would have been best if I had left you for dead all those centuries ago, my friend,_ thought Yukari as she stepped out of the void and into her bedroom.

With a sigh, she leaned closer her parasol before leaning it against the wall and sliding her pale pink mob cap from her head, allowing to drop carelessly to the floor. She had just sunken down upon the well-worn futon she kept in the corner of her room when a knock sounded at the door.

"Come in," she called as there was only one being it could be and she needed to speak to her anyways.

The door slid open, admitting a tall woman clad in a light purple with a pair of fox ears and nine long tails that twitched ever so slightly as she walked.

"Welcome home, Yukari-sama," the woman said, bowing in Yukari's general direction before moving to pick up the discarded headwear lying on the floor.

"I completed my rounds some hours ago. There was only one small issue with the border, but I managed to repair it after the red-white pointed it out," the woman said, folding and putting away Yukari's hat.

"Thanks, Ran," Yukari said wearily, allowing her eyes to slide shut. "I noticed Chen wasn't anywhere on the property. Where has she run off to this time?"

"Ah…" Ran's cheeks flushed and her tails began to twitch faster at the mention of her child-like shikigami. "She's been attempting to train a bunch of cats from the human village in an attempt to gain her own servant. I believe she's been using a house at the edge of the village for the very purpose. "

"Has she had any success? That sounds like a…interesting endeavor."

"Ah…no, she really hasn't. As loathe as I am to speak ill of Chen, cats don't listen well under the best of circumstances and Chen isn't exactly the brightest."

"Mhm." Yukari hummed non-committedly in response, her eyes still closed as she listened to Ran bustle about. "I need you to take care of something for me," she said eventually.

"Would this 'thing' you need me to take care of have anything to do with your confrontation with Kazami-san earlier today?" Ran asked.

"Oh. You heard that?"

"I don't think there was _anyone_ who didn't hear at least part of it, Yukari-sama," the shikigami said blandly. "It's been quite a long time since I've seen you lose control over your powers like that."

"That's just wonderful. I guess I'll just have to remain in the estate and sleep until this all blows over. You should be fine, but just in case I'll review the control over borders I gave you. I'll be counting on you to watch over the border until I'm ready to show my face again," Yukari said with a false sense of worry.

"So…things will continue as they have been in other words?" Ran asked with a deadpanned voice.

"You're quite cheeky as of late. What happened to you?" Yukari asked, opening her eyes and then blinking rapidly when realized just how close Ran was to her.

"You asked me to do you a favor regarding Kazami-san and although I'm bound to follow your every order, there's a great risk of bodily harm when dealing with her. Consider it…what do humans call it? Danger pay?" Ran said, smiling before rising to her feet to give her mistress some room.

With a long sigh that she hoped conveyed exactly how tired and stressed she was, Yukari forced herself to sit-up so she could look Ran in the eyes.

"First of all, the last time I checked I wasn't paying you at all," she began, "And secondly," her voice lost the cheerfulness it had contained previously at this, "I want this to be done in secret. There are those in Gensokyo who know ways out of the barrier and it would be bad to say the least if they interfered."

"Understood," Ran said, her voice also devoid of its previous joviality, "when would you like me to transport Kazami-san?"

Yukari took a deep breath before answering. _I'm sorry, my friend. I hope you find peace,_ she thought.

"Do it as soon as possible. The less time we give her to prepare, the better."

* * *

Despite the heavy heat of the summer sun bearing down up her, Yuuka smiled from underneath her parasol as she walked, the soles of her boots making a light thumping sound upon the concrete. She was having more fun than she'd had in centuries.

It had been roughly six months since she had been ever so rudely snatched up by that irritating shikigami of the equally irritating border yokai. Despite the axe looming over her head, Yuuka couldn't help but take time to explore how much the Outside had changed in the last century or so.

There was simply so much for her to do and to see that she'd found herself spending less and less time searching for her wayward other-half. It had been on her second day, when she'd stumbled upon a small flower shop that the first problem occurred: money.

While she faintly remembered the concept of money, it was nothing she had needed within Gensokyo and certainly not something she would have brought with her (not that she had been given the opportunity to prepare, curse that shikigami). Thankfully the few humans that she'd chosen to interact with had been more than happy to give her their money.

Ah, humans.

They were far, far more numerous here than they had been in Gensokyo and despite her irritation with their crude and fragile nature, she was happy to have a never-ending supply of things to play with. After all, it was her divine responsibility to terrorize humanity – a task given to her by one of the judges of the dead.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Yuuka, woken from her thoughts, smiled at the rather brave human woman who had questioned her. Her smile widened as the woman flinched under her gaze, and she gestured to the well-manicured garden the women was kneeling in.

"I am in the area searching for a certain…someone and I merely stopped to admire the flowers. They seem to be flourishing under your care," Yuuka said, "their beauty seems to oft go unappreciated."

"Looking for someone?" The woman parroted, before glaring at Yuuka, or more specifically her hair. "I should have known by your hair. You're one of those freaks that hangs around my nephew," the woman spat.

"Oh?" Yuuka said, frowning as she reached up to tug on a strand of her hair. _Is green really such an odd colour here in this world,_ Yuuka thought as she took a closer look at the woman before her.

The woman was tall, pale, and gaunt with a head of wiry black hair. Her sharp, angular face and thin lips were in sharp contrast to her own. All in all, not a person that she remembered ever being related to if her nephew was the one she was looking for.

The hunt for the other half of her soul was…frustrating, to say the least. The lack of ambient magic in the world made the people and creatures who possessed it stand out, like a bright light in a darkened room, to her. Add onto the fact that she could feel it calling out to her and the search should have been a simple one.

And yet, it wasn't. While knowing that her other half possessed magic made the search easier, the direction the tugs on her soul were pulling her in were confusing. Every time she got near a location, a new tug would pull her in a completely different direction.

"Well, he's not here, so go on and leave. We don't want you or your kind here," the woman said with venom, either uncaring or oblivious to Yuuka's inner-dilemma. Based on the way the woman seemed utterly focused on getting her to leave, she would guess the latter.

"If you could be so kind as to point me in his general direction, I will leave post-haste. I am here to remove the boy after all, it wouldn't be good for my health to delay."

A glint entered the woman's eye as Yuuka spoke, confirming her suspicions. "Why didn't you say so?!" The woman cried, rising to her feet before pointing to the east. "Harry's probably at the park by the end of the street. Usually skulks around their 'till dark."

"Many thanks," Yuuka said, bowing to the strange, unpleasant woman before heading in the pointed direction. She could feel the boy's soul, a mirror of her own, calling out to be returned home.

The ancient, rusted swing-set cried out pitifully as one of its swings swung weakly through the air, its despondent occupant lazily kicking his legs every once in a while in an erratic rhythm. Harry Potter stared glumly forward as he swung slowly through the air, frustration coursing through his body.

He had been so certain that someone magical, someone like him, had been in the area earlier that it almost hurt. The lack of communication from the magical world, especially considering the events of the previous year, was painful.

He'd taken to receiving a subscription of the daily prophet, scanning the paper for news of you-know-who that never seemed to be there. Lately he would barely spare the front page a glance before tossing it aside, frustrated.

His friend's letters, few and far between as they were, were not much more of a help either. Although vague, their letters did confirm that they were both busy with something, and at the same location – likely Ron's house. That and their vague information frustrated him more than anything else. Was he not trustworthy enough?

 _But you let Cedric die and participated in the return of Lord Voldemort,_ a traiteurs part of his mind whispered before he could silence it.

"I'm not a murderer," he muttered to himself.

"Of course you are not. You're far too innocent."

The melodious and completely unexpected reply caused Harry's head to shoot up, searching for the speaker. It took him a moment, for he did not expect the voice's owner to be a mere few feet in front of him.

The girl before him was young, likely only a year or two his elder and was quite clearly a magical like him. Her red plaid skirt and vest along with her long sleeved button-up shirt looked surprisingly muggle. It was her piercing red eyes and short, green hair, however that marked as something more.

She carried an open lacy, pink parasol with a curved handle in one hand that he guessed also doubled as her wand, for he could see no other place where she could keep one on her body.

 _Like Hagrid does,_ his mind supplied as he remembered the burly gamekeeper and the umbrella he kept his broken wand pieces in.

"Harry?" The girl questioned, her quiet, melodious voice confirming her to be the one who had spoken earlier.

"Yes…?" He spoke hesitantly, his response half statement, half question, before nodding and repeating himself. "I am Harry Potter. Why did you say I am too innocent?" Her question had confirmed to him that she was a magical. How else would she have known his name?

Now he just wondered if she was the person he had noticed earlier.

The girl tilted her head to the side, obvious confusion flickering through her eyes as she observed him.

"As I said, your soul is far too innocent for a murderer, which is puzzling given your nature," the girl said, confusion evident in her tone as she stepped closer to him.

"Do you not feel the exhilaration pumping through your veins in the heat of battle? Does the sight of your enemies lying broken before you not fill you with an inexplicable joy?" The girl murmured, although whether she spoke to him or herself, he was unsure.

"You're deranged," Harry said, stumbling backwards, his leg briefly entangled with the swing, in an effort to avoid the hand she had stretched out towards him. His wand burned a hole in his pocket as he eyed the girl warily, the swing now separating them.

Had Voldemort sent her? She looked too…well, to repeat what she had called him, innocent to be working with someone as evil as the Dark Lord.

"Many have called me that before," the girl admitted readily. She then blinked suddenly, as if having a sudden thought. "Kazami Yuuka, I'm in your care," the girl said, grabbing the hem of her skirt before briefly dipping into a curtsy.

"Harry Potter," he repeated, matching her curtsy with a nod of his own. "Now why are you here? Who sent you, Voldemort?"

"Voldemort? What kind of silly name is that? As for why I'm here, I'm here for you, of course."

A chill ran down his spine at that and he was reaching for his wand when a deep, barking laugh echoed across the park.

"Oi! That's rich, aint it boys? A girl tries to touch him and he runs like she was the devil 'im self!"

Several other mocking laughs joined the first and Harry's heart sank when he spotted the unmistakable rotund form of his cousin Dudley. Several other teenage boys surrounded him, some on bikes; all were members of Dudley's 'gang' that terrorized Little Winging.

"Get behind me!" Spring forward, Harry placed himself between the girl, Yuuka, and Dudley's gang. While he was fairly sure the girl could handle herself with her magic, he didn't want her to get in trouble for breaking the statute of secrecy. Even if she had come to cause him harm, which he didn't believe she did, no matter how creepy she was.

"I'll distract them once they get closer. Once I do, I want you to run," he said to the girl, who had an amused expression on her face. "Can you Apparate?"

"That won't be necessary, I can assure you," Yuuka said to him as she took his former seat upon the swing. "This is incredibly amusing. I'm not going anywhere."

"Erhm. Alright," Harry said, turning his attention away from the confusing girl to his approaching cousin and his gang.

The still laughing boys surrounded him and Yuuka in a half-circle while Dudley and a spindly boy, Pierce if he remembered correctly, moved towards them.

"So, Harry," Dudley sneered, his eyes running up and down Yuuka's body, something that seemed to bring even greater amusement to the girl, "Afraid of girls now?"

"Perhaps he just has different _tastes,_ eh, Big D?" Pierce said, bumping Dudley's shoulder as a fresh wave of jeering and laughter erupted from the surrounding boys.

Moving between his cousin and Yuuka, Harry grinned when Dudley paled and began pedal backwards when he moved his hand towards his back pocket. Pierce just looked confused, his head swinging back and forth between Dudley and Harry.

"Now, now, Dudders," Harry said, using his aunt's pet name for his cousin, "It's rude to ogle people like that."

"You're not allowed to use that thing," Dudley said, his voice more confident now that he was surrounded by his gang, "Not if you don't want to get expelled from that freak school of yours."

Dudley's face darkened when Harry remained silent, his hand stuck in his pocket. While it was true he couldn't do anything to Dudley, his hope was to bluff the larger boy away. Unfortunately, it seemed as if his silence confirmed his cousin's statement.

"Ha! I knew it," the boy crowed, "You can't do anything can you? You're completely worthless."

"You!" Dudley said suddenly, pointing a finger at Yuuka before jerking a thumb at himself. "You should come with us. We can show you a much better time than that freak ever could. He still cries to his parents at night!"

"Good call, Dud," one of the surrounding boy called as another one whistled, "Look at her curves."

Faces flushed, Harry snarled at what they were insinuating and pulled his wand from his pocket and pointed at it Dudley. His mouth was open to utter his first spell when he felt a hand on his shoulder and realized Yuuka was standing beside him.

"This is so wonderful," Yuuka giggled, a hand covering her mouth, her red eyes glinting as she looked at Dudley. "Dinner and a show!"

She then moved. Moving faster than any of them could react on foot, she appeared before Dudley as everyone stared at her, and slammed one of her delicate looking hands into Dudley's chest, knocking him off his feet and sending him flying backwards.

Harry stared, mouth slightly ajar as he watched Yuuka knock his cousin half way across the park. He didn't know people could move that fast naturally. Perhaps she was using magic to somehow increase her speed? He would have to ask Hermione.

He swallowed the knot in his throat as he remembered her previous 'dinner' comment and how she'd said she had come for him. With a shaking hand, Harry pointed his wand at Yuuka.

Before he could cast, however, Yuuka moved again, appearing a few feet away from Dudley's groaning form. With a deliberate slowness, she closed her parasol before pointing it at Dudley.

"I like you~" Yuuka giggled as Dudley struggled to squirm away from her, a wide smile upon her face. "I think I'll kill you first~"

* * *

 **AN: This is going to be the only AN I post for quite a while, so it'll be a bit long, bear with me.**

 **Welcome to For the Lover of Flowers everyone! This story is an AU crossover taking place during the Order of the Phoenix book with elements of the Touhou project. For fans of the Touhou project, characters will likely be a mix of their PC-98 and Windows canon in an effort to flesh out their backgrounds.**

 **This story is functioning as an writing exercise for me, so expect frequent updates (7-10 days per chapter).**

 **P.S. The Last Dance of Heaven is still being worked on, but it is was a rush job so it's been put on hold until I can fix it.**

 **Until the next time comes to enter the world of Fantasy - RM**


	2. Chapter 2: Dancing with the Devil

**For the Love of Flowers**

 **Disclaimer: All rights and content regarding Harry Potter and Touhou project belong to their respective owners; I own nothing.**

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 **Chapter 2: Dancing with the Devil**

"I think I'll kill you first~"

Yuuka's giggling declaration was impossibly loud, echoing out across the silent park. Time seemed to be frozen as Harry and Dudley's watched Yuuka standing before Dudley's prone and unmoving body.

Then someone screamed and time started again with a lurch.

"Stupefy!" Harry shouted, slashing his wand forward, no longer caring about what laws he was breaking. He watched with baited breath as the jet of red light shot towards Yuuka.

The spell was a hair's-breadth away from connecting from the girl's unprotected when Yuuka spun neatly out of the way, her skirt flaring up as she moved. Harry's spell, with nothing obstructing its path anymore, continued forwards until it struck Dudley, leaving the boy lying senseless upon the ground.

 _Ah, that's just wonderful,_ Harry thought, wincing as he watched his cousin slump to the ground.

Screams filled the park as Dudley's gang split, each one running in a different direction in an effort to escape the impromptu magical battle. Pierce had even managed to reach the park fence when the ground wriggled to life. Thorny vines burst free from the ground and wrapped around each of the struggling boys. Red roses began to sprout up and down the vine's length, fed by the blood running freely from where the thorns had pierced the boy's flesh.

"Ah, ah, ah," Yuuka sang, clicking her tongue and shaking her head in mock ruefulness as the vines began to drag the captured children back to her. "Don't you know how rude it is to leave in the middle of a game?"

"Stupefy!" Harry shouted once more with another slash of his wand. As much as he hated his cousin and Co., he was unwilling to leave them to whatever, likely bloody, fate that awaited them at Yuuka's feet.

Although, once again, his spell failed to connect, it succeeded in attracting Yuuka's attention. _Not exactly sure if that's a good thing,_ Harry thought as Yuuka winked at him.

"How rude," Yuuka said, frowning as she blocked his spell with her parasol. "Have you not been taught how to duel?"

Harry blinked as a moment of déjà vu washed over him and instead of a young, green haired girl standing before him, he saw the tall, pale form of Lord Voldemort. It was Yuuka moving that drew him back to reality.

Harry began to back-pedal rapidly, firing stunners at the approaching girl. He was starting to have serious doubts as to whether she was actually human, however, as she dodged each of his spells with a super-natural grace.

He stumbled and bit his lip in pain when his backwards progress was brought to sudden, harsh halt. Glancing down, he saw that similar to Dudley's gang, a flowery vine had wrapped itself around his legs.

Harry almost yelped when he glanced back up and noticed that Yuuka was inches in front of his face. Dimly he noted that the park was completely silent except for his heavy breathing.

"So you haven't been taught to duel," Yuuka stated, grinning at him. "Don't worry, I'll teach you how; it's not hard."

She then curtsied in a similar manner to how she had earlier, but this one was deeper and she dipped her head. "My name is Kazami Yuuka, Flower Master of the Four Seasons."

"What did you do with the others?" Harry stammered, looking around desperately in an attempt to avoid Yuuka's piercing red eyes. Unlike Voldemort's own hate filled stare, however, Yuuka's eyes seemed filled with a twisted sort of affection. He honestly wasn't sure which scared him more.

"Oh, the others? I killed them," Yuuka said flippantly as she looked at him with concern. "They were boring and ruining the game…are you sure you're alright?"

 _No I'm not alright,_ Harry wanted to scream at the girl – no monster, before him. He wanted to scream, wanted to lash out at her and make her pay for all the frustration and fear he was feeling. But most importantly he just to a world where everything made sense and one where a red-eyed maniac wasn't trying to kill him.

He did none of that, however, and with a calmness he most certainly did not feel, he repeated an action that felt like had happened a life time ago and preformed a deep bow.

"Harry Potter," he began, feeling the vines around his legs begin to unfurl as he emerged from his bow. "But I've also been called 'the Boy-Who-Lived' by some, but I greatly prefer to be just Harry."

"Very well, 'Just Harry'," Yuuka said, walking backwards with slow, measured steps, "Now that we have been introduced, it is time for a game to begin. We fight not just for our very lives, but for our rights to exist!"

"Now," she continued softly, almost murmuring to herself, "I want you to show me what made you so special. Show me why you managed to survive on your own, even after mother abandoned you."

"Now, Harry Potter," Yuuka said, stopping at a fair distance from him, "we duel."

Hiding her face with the shadows of her parasol, Yuuka leapt backward and into the air, her feet seemingly resting upon an invisible platform. Around her, with no visible motion of her parasol, a countless amount of glowing balls began to form until it looked as if he was looking at the stars in the night sky.

"Merlin's balls."

The curse slipped from his mouth involuntary as reflexes born of years of dodging bludgers kicked into action and Harry threw himself to the side. The spot where he had been standing a moment before exploded in a shower of dirt.

He scrambled to his feet as fast as he could, more of the glowing orbs already descending from the sky in groups of twos and tens, carving intricate patterns through the air before striking the earth in an explosion of dirt.

Harry laughed bitterly within in his mind as he danced through a narrow gap in the most recent group of orbs – bullets, as he'd taken to calling them. _It's really not much of a duel,_ he internally complained.

Although his wand was still clasped tightly in his hand, he'd never been given more than a mere moment's respite. Every spell and curse, few as they were, he'd fired at the still floating Yuuka had been blocked and knocked aside contemptuously by her parasol.

"This is it? We haven't even been playing for a minute yet and this is already boring…" Yuuka said, her shoulders slumped. "I must say, you are nothing like I expected. Do not fret, I shall end it now. Good-bye, Harry Potter."

Once more the night sky around Yuuka began to rapidly fill with those deadly glowing orbs. These ones, however, seemed to burn with a harsh red-orange colour instead of the previous silver-blue. Faster and faster the orbs rotated around Yuuka before, suddenly, with a flick of her fingers, they all descended upon him in wave of fire.

 _There's no pattern now! She's really trying to kill me,_ Harry realized with horror when after he moved away out of the paths of the first few exploding orbs that they had no discernable pattern.

He grunted when an orb exploded directly in front of him, the burst of energy slamming into his legs and knocking him from his feet. Unable to move out of the way of the on-coming barrage, Harry brought his wand to bear and gathered as much magical energy as he possibly could.

"Protego!" He screamed. The silvery shield sprang to life around him. It hung in the air, its surface flaring with every bullet that impacted it, minute cracks spreading throughout its surface. With a final, groaning cry the shield splintered into a thousand tiny fragments before dissipating in a cloud of mist.

Harry only had time to blink once, his eyes widening in horror before the bullets struck his body. His mouth opened in a soundless scream as pain exploded across his body. His back arched briefly before he was tossed like a ragdoll by a bullet that hit the ground.

He landed heavily on his back, the sound of glass cracking was loud in his ears and his breath was driven from him by the violence of his landing. Dimly, he recognized the warm, sticky liquid trickling down his body as his own blood.

The sound of footfalls near him and the lack of explosions prompted Harry to desperately attempted to bring his wand to bear, but nothing happened but a mere twitching of his hand.

A whimper tore from his throat when something crashed down upon his wrist, snapping it. Although he was currently half-blind, Harry got the distinct impression that Yuuka was shaking her head at him.

"Oh, Harry," she said with a whimsical sigh, "one of the first things to know in dueling is to know when you're out-matched and when to give up."

There was a rustling of cloth and a moment later he felt her hand caress his cheek and a weight settle onto his chest.

"Oh, Harry," she whispered into his ear, "It pains me to see how different we are. Like night and day, yet I can feel the soul within you crying out to me, yearning to be reunited once more. Can you hear its call as well?"

 _No, I can't. Someone help. Help!_ Harry wanted to scream, but the only thing that escaped his throat was a strangled croak. The pressure bearing down on his chest was increasing rapidly and he began to thrash about. He didn't want to die and even more so he didn't want to lose his soul, if what he guessed she was talking about was correct.

"Shh, shh. It'll all be over so- Oh? What's this?"

The pressure on his chest vanished completely and a series of coughs wracked his body as much needed air flooded his lungs. A multitude of loud cracks and pops sounded across the park, similar to the one he had heard earlier near his aunt/uncles' house.

Inaudible shouting filled the field, making Harry wince.

A pair of hands hooked themselves under Harry's shoulders and he felt himself being dragged backwards. A moment later the cool lip of a bottle was thrust between his lips and he felt the pain permeating his body begin to fade as the liquid trickled down his throat.

"Hold on, son. I've got yo- Merlin's beard! It's Harry Potter," The person, a man based on his voice, shouted.

"We have you surrounded, drop your wand and surrender," the imperious sounding woman's demand was met with silence.

"You have to the count of three," the woman shouted.

"Three."

"Two."

"One."

"Stupefy!" The night was filled with red as the woman's cry was echoed a dozen times over from various points of the park ground.

" 'ts not enough…" Harry slurred from where he was being held. Darkness swam at the edge of his vision, but he struggled to hold it back.

" 'ts not enough," he repeated, blood trickling down his chin, "she's really strong and can block spells."

"You sure about that, son?" The man asked. "I'm going to need to put you down then, Mr. Potter," the man said upon seeing Harry's weak nod, "I'm going to go for help. I'll be back as soon as possible, but I need you to hold on."

Swiftly, but gently, the man placed Harry on the ground and covered the lower half of his body with his cloak as his fellow aurors fought for their lives in the background. Harry watched the man spin and disappear with a loud crack through half-lidded eyes.

 _Hopefully he gets help in time_ , Harry thought to himself as he allowed his eyes to slide shut. Darkness enveloped him moments later.

* * *

The kitchen of number twelve Grimmauld Place was in a state of organized chaos when a haggard, dark skinned man clad in a set of purple robes stepped out of the fireplace.

A small set of knives was hard at work dicing a collection of vegetables before pushing them into an iron cauldron being tended by a small, portly woman. The man at her side was engrossed in a newspaper, idly handing the woman whatever odd or end she asked for before returning to his reading.

The long, wooden table in the center of the room housed a small group of children and one adult man. A sparking deck of cards lay between them, its contents shuffling ever faster as the children attempted to tap them with the wands they held.

"Kingsley! What a pleasant surprise, we weren't expecting you tonight," the portly woman greeted, turning to the man with a smile.

"Molly, Arthur," Kinglsey said to the woman and the man beside her. He then turned and nodded at the man sitting at the table, "Sirius."

"How many members of the Order are in the house?" Kingsley asked, his face grim. "Harry's been attacked and according to him the team of aurors that are already there aren't enough to deal with situation."

The response to his proclamation was instantaneous: chaos. There were several loud exclamations from the children, one bushy-haired girl even fell out of her seat.

"I…I don't know. I think Tonks and Moody are upstairs working on something. I'll go check."

The stew Molly had been tending was left abandoned as she and her husband left the kitchen. A creaking marked their progress up the stairs.

"Is it Voldemort?" Sirius had leapt from the table, his face pale.

Kinglsey previously grim expression morphed into one of confusion as he took a seat at the table. "No…from what I could see his attacker was a young girl. Likely a sixth or seventh year at Hogwarts."

The youngest redheaded male at the table snorted and rolled his eyes. "Blimey," the boy said, "you're telling me that just because Harry got attacked by a school girl the ministry responded with a squad of aurors?"

"How is Harry anyways? Is he hurt?" Asked the bushy-haired girl as she paced up and down the kitchen.

"It wasn't his attacker that brought our squad of aurors to the scene. Harry's trace had activated and both the volume and type of spells he had been casting in a short period of time were eerily similar to when traces had been activated during you-know-who's last active period."

Kinglsey than grimaced at he looked at the girl and then Sirius. "As for Harry…he wasn't in a great shape. He was suffering from multiple puncture wounds and burns. Despite the potion I gave him, I didn't dare bring Apparate with him."

"Sounds like we're dealing with some sort of dark creature masquerading as a human, then," a new voice added.

The grizzled man who had spoken walked into the kitchen with an odd-gait, his wooden leg producing a dull thunk with every step. A young woman accompanied by Molly and Arthur followed behind him.

"Ready to go then, Shacklebolt?" The 'Mad-Eye' Moody questioned, his wand in hand. "We shouldn't leave Potter there for long if that girl really is that dangerous."

"I'm coming with you. That's not up for debate," Sirius said as he moved to stand beside Moody. He held up a hand to silence Molly even as she opened her mouth to speak. "I know my order from Dumbledore, Molly. But I'm Harry's godfather and so far I've done a fairly poor job at it."

Sirius shivered as Moody rapped his head with his wand.

"There," Moody grunted, "That'll help hide you from the aurors. Now let's get going."

"Wait! Harry's our friend too, we want to help," said the bushy-haired girl.

"No!" Molly shouted, "It's bad enough that Bill's getting involved in this Order business, you're not as well, Hermione."

"But mom-"

"I said no, Ron!" Molly's features than softened as she ran her eyes over them. "Why don't you kids help me prepare a room for Harry? Kingsley said he was injured."

There was a series of muttered yes and dark glares shot at Molly by the children, but they all got up and followed her out of the room.

"Everyone remembers the Apparation point in Harry's neighborhood?" Kingsley asked once the kitchen door had swung shut.

"Alright then," he said, drawing his wand as everyone sans Sirius nodded, "Let's go. Sirius, you're with me. Tonks, with Moody."

Grabbing Sirius's arm, Kinglsey pictured the bloodstained, torn-apart park he had left Harry in and with grim determination, he spun on the spot and disappeared with a loud crack.

* * *

Yuuka frowned in irritation as she sheltered beneath her parasol, blood pouring down around her as the last of the robe wearing people who had dared interfere died, his upper body exploding in a rain of gore when one of her overcharged danmaku spheres slammed into him.

These pests were making it extraordinarily hard for her to keep the promise she had made to Yukari. While she had kept to the terms in a literal sense (she hadn't even disturbed the majority of people she came across) she was fairly certain that the border yokai had a different definition of what 'butcher everyone' meant than her.

The sound of a series of loud cracks hit her ear and she kicked the ground in frustration, creating a sizeable dent in the earth and splattering herself with the bloody dirt.

"Great. Just great," she growled, glaring at the four new figures who had appeared and were crowded around the fallen form of her alternate self. "These humans are like fucking ants. No matter how many of them I kill, there's always more."

She began to move towards the newcomers, picking her path with care as the damp, blood-soaked ground clung to the soles of her boots and threatened to pull them from her feet. The sound of her footfalls attracted their attention, for one of them, a tall, pale man with a head of wild black hair glanced up as she approached.

 _Mhmm, he could use more sun,_ Yuuka mused, shoving aside her mounting frustration as she stopped a few paces from the small group and assumed tried to appear as non-threatening as possible.

"Stop right there, Demon," the man spat, pointing his wand at her and earning a raised eye-brow for his efforts, "you will not touch my godson."

"Your godson?" Yuuka questioned, furrowing her brow as she took a closer look at the man. "Nope," she said eventually with a sigh, "I don't recognize you. At all. Was being born male really basis for all of these changes?"

The woman with short, pink hair looked puzzled by Yuuka's statement and the wand she had been waving over Harry faltered as a result. "Why would you recognize Sirius?" She asked.

"Irrelevant," Yuuka said, dismissing the woman. "Now, would you mind stepping away from my prize? I made a promise, so I'd rather not kill you, but I've come a long way and I'm tired."

"Dealing with your kind has also become rather irritating," she added as an afterthought.

There was a bark of rough laughter as the eldest and by far the most scarred of the three men moved between her and Harry. "'Our kind', eh? So you're not human. What are you then, a vampire?"

The corner of Yuuka's lips curled in distaste at that image and she laughed. "No, no. I am nothing as…crude as those bloodsuckers."

"But what species of yokai I am is not relevant to the topic of our discussion. I require that boy if I wish to continue my existence. Now, will you stand aside, human?"

A wide, slanted grin split the scarred man's face as his false eye began to spin wildly in its socket. "We don't listen to the orders of monsters," he said, "But if you surrender quietly we promise not to hurt you…too much."

"Moody!" Hissed the woman, tugging on the man's arm and gesturing around the field. "Do you not see what she did to that squad of aurors?!"

Yuuka cocked her head to the side as she watched the humans squabble amongst themselves, as if forgetting she was there. The tall, pale man, Harry's godfather, shot her a tight-lipped smile and shrugged his shoulders as if to say 'what can you do'.

"Very well," Yuuka said at last, hefting her parasol and turning around, her quiet words cutting through the humans squabbling like a hot knife through butter. She walked until she had doubled the distance between them. Idly, she noted that an elderly lady was making her way through the park, oblivious to the world, and made a mental note to try and avoid harming her.

Grasping the hem of her skirt and resting her parasol on her shoulder as she turned back the group of humans, Yuuka curtsied and smiled. "You are brave, but foolish, humans. It is only right that you know the name of your executioner: I am Kazami Yuuka, Flower Master of the Four Seasons."

There was a pause as the humans simply stared at her, eliciting a groan from Yuuka. "Why is it none of you humans know proper dueling etiquete?!" Yuuka asked, annoyed.

The only answer she received was silence.

"Very well," Yuuka said once more as she raised her free arm, "let us begin."

 _Well, I tried. It's not my fault humans are such stubborn creatures,_ Yuuka thought as she shivered in anticipation. The darkened park grounds began to glow as her danmaku sphere swirled around her.

It was a picturesque moment: Yuuka stood still, blood dripping from her face and hair down onto her clothes with her arm outstretched like a demented conductor as she continued to create ever more spheres. Across from her, the four human magicians stood with their wands drawn and pointed at her, their faces set with grim determination.

And then, with a harsh clanking of metal, the silent scene was broken as a heavy object slammed into the back of Yuuka's head.

"What?!" Yuuka snarled, flinching, the park plunging back into darkness as her concentration was snapped and her spheres vanished. She whirled around to confront her attacker when the object hit her again, smashing into her face and sending her stumbling.

Hissing in pain and half-blinded by the blood trickling down from a cut in her forehead, Yuuka lashed out with her parasol. She smirked in satisfaction as heard her attacker scream out in pain. The human's scream turned to one as terror a wide white-blue beam of light burst out of the end of her parasol, tearing the elderly human female's body in twain before carving a long furrow in the earth.

"That's it!" Yuuka shouted, the fragile chains that had been holding back her frustration snapping. "I was going to play with you, but I'm tired of this. I miss my bed; my flowers; hell I even miss that annoying border yokai I call a friend! Just die, you kami damned humans!"

Closing her parasol, she pointed it at the human magicians, uncaring that her target was in the way. She had other ways of collecting his soul half.

Yuuka began gathering her power and splitting it in order to perform a technique she hadn't had a reason to in decades. Beside her a faded mirror image appeared, its form gaining colour and solidity at a rapid pace as Yuuka temporarily split her soul in two.

A maniacal glint to match her smile was in Yuuka's eyes as she finished splitting her power, her soul. A perfect copy of Yuuka stood beside her wearing an identical expression.

"Dual Spark!" The two shouted, magical power coursing through their bodies and racing towards the tips of their parasols. Just as it reached its peak, however, the form of Yuuka's double wavered and with a cry of anguish, shattered.

Yuuka screamed in pain as her soul forcibly snapped back together and all of the magic she had built up surged back into her body. Her parasol fell to the ground as she clawed at her chest, desperate to relieve the building pressure.

With a final, hoarse cry, she crumpled to the ground as her legs gave way beneath her; a puppet with its strings cut. The small part of her mind that was still coherent lamented about the fact that the way she was about to die was pathetic, but the rest of it chose to give into the welcoming darkness and she knew no more.

* * *

 **Hope everyone enjoyed it, update is early: had some issues with page breaks that need to be fixed. Until next time - RM**


	3. Chapter 3: Revelations

**For the Love of Flowers**

 **Disclaimer: All rights and content regarding Harry Potter and Touhou project belong to their respective owners; I own nothing.**

* * *

 **Chapter 3: Revelations**

There was a fire raging at the back of her throat, the sensation punching through the fog that clouded her mind and dragged her unwilling consciousness towards the light.

With a hacking, body shaking cough, Yuuka woke to a world of darkness. Her body felt like it was burning and she was soaked in a mixture of sweat and dried blood. She began to convulse as the fluids in her throat blocked her from taking any further breaths.

The metal cords she could feel wrapped around her arms and legs bit into her flesh as she thrashed about. Her nails cut into her palms as she clenched her fists. A strangled, sobbing cry tore from her throat as she attempted to summon her magic; to grow her plants, anything that would free her dying body from its bonds. Nothing but a cool emptiness answered her call.

There was the sound of frantic footfalls on wood followed by a dull thud as the door of her prison was thrown open, accompanied by a bright ray of light. She spluttered as the rim of a cup was pressed to her lips and a stream of cool, lifesaving liquid trickled down her throat.

She moaned in protest as the cup was pulled away after a mere moment's time, putting a halt to her brief respite.

"Sorry," said her mysterious benefactor, "You'd choke if I gave you anymore. Can't have you dying on me now."

With a light groan, Yuuka summoned what little energy she had and forced her gunk encrusted eyes open. Her deep, rasping breaths broke the silence of the room as she lifted her head from her chest.

Her benefactor was a tired looking man that was seated near the door in chair identical to hers, sans the binding chains. He wore a set of grey, threadbare robes and an identical grey and threadbare waistcoat.

"I am not dead…why?" Yuuka croaked as she allowed her body to go limp, the rattling chains that had been strangling her, relaxing in turn. While she was certain that the chains would snap under her physical strength, she was far less certain of her ability to stand.

Yuuka tensed as the man rose from his seat and moved towards her, an affronted expression marring his otherwise gentle features. One of his hands, that had held life-saving water a moment ago, shot towards her head.

She willed herself to relax as the man's hand latched onto her bangs, pulling them aside as he stared at the cut on her forehead, a frown upon his face. "What kind of monsters do you take us for?" The man questioned, releasing her hair and walking to a low table.

He returned a moment later, a new cup of water in his hand. Upon seeing her slight nod, he helped her take a few, short sips before pulling it away. "Despite Wizard kind's aversion to those they deem 'Half-Breeds'," the man's lips curling as he spoke, "they wouldn't just execute someone. Especially someone as young as yourself."

Yuuka let out a weak chuckle. _It seems they have mistaken me for a child. How…quaint._

"You show distaste for your own kind's policies? Curious," Yuuka said as the man moved his chair so that he was sitting across from her.

"Not so curious, actually," the man said with a small shake of his head. "I've suffered my own fair share of discrimination at their hands."

"And yet you remain."

"And yet I remain," the man echoed. "Bigoted though they may be, Britain is still my home and I would not abandon it."

Yuuka tilted her head as she examined the man, wincing as pain lanced through her body. "You are not yokai, nor are you a Lunarian. A were creature, perhaps?"

The man blinked, surprise evident in his features. "Yes," he admitted, rueful, "I'm a werewolf. I can't say I've heard of the term 'Lunarian' before, and I specialize in the study of Dark Creatures. You mentioned yokai though, are you Japanese? I would have pegged you as English-born if it wasn't for your accent."

"That's because I _am_ English-born, although of where, I could not tell you. I wouldn't even be able to tell you my birth name; it has long since been lost in the mists of time. I have preciously few memories of my time amongst your kind," Yuuka said, shrugging as much as was possible without snapping her binds.

A knock at the open door drew both of their attention. Standing in the doorway were two men. One of whom was a tall, gaunt man whose face was flushed with anger that she recognized as the man who had claimed to be her alternate's godfather.

It was the other, elder, man, however, that demanded her attention. He was dressed in an outlandish fashion, even when compared to some of the more…flamboyant residents of Gensokyo that she'd had interacted with. The pointed hat he wore was so similar to the one that Marissa was known to wear that she blinked, for a moment wondering if she was hallucinating – something that was not outside of the realm of possibility given her current state.

"Ah," the elder man said, his eyes twinkling as they met her own, "I see our guest is awake now. You gave us quite a scare, my dear girl. Wounds of the soul are quite difficult to heal, it took quite a bit of coaxing on my part to convince a dear old friend of mine to heal you."

"That's…That's disconcerting actually," Yuuka said with a grimace. "There are only a handful of creatures that I know are capable of healing such wounds and the thought of being in debt to any of them is distasteful in the extreme."

"Don't worry," the gaunt man spat, "It wasn't my idea."

"Now, now, Sirius," the elder man chided his companion, "all life is precious, even that of those that are beyond redemption. They must not escape punishment, but we should not let their darkness consume us."

Yuuka blinked and then shook her head. _Haven't I heard this before?_

"We should never have convinced Fawkes to heal her, Dumbledore! She tried to kill Harry and _actually_ killed a dozen aurors, not to mention Arabella!"

"I agree, you should have left me to die," Yuuka said, her eyes and tone hardening as she cut off Dumbledore who had been prepared to speak. "It would have been a far kinder of fate."

Dumbledore shrugged, an action that caused his long, white beard to dance. "What's done is done," he said, "we should look to the future."

With a wave of the wand Dumbledore pulled from his bright robes, two plush armchairs popped into existence before Yuuka. Another wave of his wand saw that the mess of fluids covering her face and half-blinding her disappear. Her slight nod of thanks was returned with a gentle smile.

The kind, old man façade that Dumbledore had been wearing faded away as he leaned forward and clasped his hands together over one knee. "Now, Miss Kazami, I think it is time that you told us just why you attacked our young friend."

"Where you sent by You-Know-Who?" Sirius asked, glaring at her.

"No, I don't know who," Yuuka said with a deadpanned expression. Hadn't the boy had a hyphenated name as well?

"You-Know-Who is a name given to an aspiring Dark Lord known as Voldemort during his reign of terror a little over a decade ago," Dumbledore said.

"In that case the answer's no. I've never heard of this 'Voldemort' person before, nor would I lower myself to something as base as being a human's attack dog," Yuuka said, noting how the two men on either side of Dumbledore flinched at the mention of Voldemort.

Her benefactor shifted in his seat, a puzzled look on his face as he examined her. "Speaking of humans… _What_ are you? If I had to guess I would say you're a vampire, but Sirius here told me that you denied being one."

"Has the thought that she may be lying not crossed your mind, Remus?" Sirius asked as she gestured at Yuuka. "I mean look at her," he said, "pale skin, red eyes, an extremely creepy fascination with blood and she was sheltering underneath a parasol when we met her. I mean look at her! She's soaked in blood and isn't bothered by it."

"Actually," Yuuka said, interrupting the man's rant, "I _am_ bothered by this mess, it's terribly uncomfortable, but it wouldn't be polite to complain about it." She then shook her arms, emphasizing the chains wrapped around them. "Speaking of which," she added, "it's really not all that polite either to have a conversation when one of the members is incapacitated like this. I don't suppose you could release me and we could all get some tea?"

"But you don't deny being a vampire," Sirius shot back. "Vampires are parasites, unlike werewolves

Dumbledore placed a hand on Sirius's shoulder and gave a shake of his head. "She's not a vampire. From what I've been told she's some sort of nature spirit, an elder one and as such, she would merely reform at her place of birth if killed."

Yuuka's eyes narrowed at the revelation of her nature. _It seems as if the old man wasn't told of the unique circumstances of my creation, however. My question is why…that kami damned flaming chicken!_ A chill crept up her spine and she tensed, preparing to break her bindings and defend herself.

"Are you sure about that, Dumbledore?" Remus, her benefactor, asked with a skeptical look as he examined her. "She looks no more than a year older than Harry, possibly two, but definitely no more than that."

"Yokai age far slower than humans do, werewolf, and those of us who are spirits of nature do not age at all. We will live for as long as the thing that ties us to the earth does," Yuuka explained. "I suppose there's no harm I telling you that, I, myself, have lived for over a millennium. I've longed stopped keeping count though."

"Fascinating," Dumbledore said, "But I'm afraid that we cannot, in good faith, release you for the fear of you harming the other occupants of this house. Now, I'm going to ask again: why did you attack Harry Potter."

"For the same reason a flower seeks the best place to lay its roots: Harry Potter has something that I require to not only live, but to continue my very existence," Yuuka said with a wide, teeth filled grin. "I was in Wales when I heard felt his soul pull on mine, begging to be re-united, begging to be claimed and made whole once more."

"For," Yuuka continued, enjoying the disbelieving looks she was receiving," as far as I can tell despite our disparities, Harry Potter and I are one and the same, the same soul stretched across two bodies."

"How is that even possible?" Sirius said, eyes wide. "You are not my godson; you look nothing like him."

Yuuka gave a small shrug. "An acquaintance of mine was messing around with the timeline, out of boredom I'm guessing, and as a result of one her actions, the circumstances of my birth changed and instead of me you got your godson, Harry Potter."

She then pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. "It is truly odd how many things differ though, as you said we look nothing alike and I most certainly do not remember you. Although, to be fair, the amount of things I remember of that time could be counted on one hand."

There was a pause as the three men digested her words.

"I will have to think on this before deciding the best course of action," Dumbledore said at last, breaking the silence. "I have a meeting later with the head of the DMLE later. Though I doubt I will be able to bargain for your freedom, there is a chance I may be able to earn you time to repay your debt."

He rose from his seat, Sirius and Remus following on either side. The conjured chairs they had been seated in disappeared with a quiet pop as they stood.

"Come on, Remus," Sirius said as he walked towards the door, "Molly had said that Harry was likely to wake up sometime soon. I'm sure he'll want to speak with us."

The two men exited the room leaving Dumbledore and her alone together.

"You might as well give up, human," Yuuka said as she met Dumbledore's twinkling gaze. "Your mind magic is of no use against my kind."

"Ah! But you must give an old man credit for trying," Dumbledore said, eliciting a chuckle from Yuuka. It was a hollow, rasping thing. "It is not often I meet someone who is my equal in terms of power, I tend to forget what is and is not acceptable in these cases."

"Your equal?" Yuuka asked with narrowed eyes, her laughter stopping just as fast as it had begun. "We are not equals, human. You are naught but a speck beneath my boots, a blip. I have crushed the life out of those far stronger than you."

"Can you truly not see it? You are an embodiment of nature, a thing of beauty. Are you so immersed in the darkness that you have forgotten the circumstances of your creation?"

Yuuka's laugh was hollow and she shook her head. "Do not forget your own words, Human. How long have you stared into the abyss? How many times have you dipped a toe in, only to flee?"

The room's door shook in its frame as Dumbledore swept from the room. Yuuka allowed herself to relax, closing her eyes and reclining as much as was allowed in her prison.

She had just begun to doze when a presence she had not felt in centuries filled the room. With a contemptuous flexing of her muscles she snapped the chains holding her down and rose from her seat.

She swayed on the spot, but remained standing, her shoulders squared and gaze firm. It was just a minute amount, but the magic in the air entered her body, soothing her aches and pains. She made her to the opposite side of the room, where she could see her parasol leaning against the wall.

Her fingers had just wrapped around its handle when a bright flash of light behind her illuminated the wall.

"Well, well, well," Yuuka said, taunting the newest being to enter the room without turning around. "Why if it isn't the grand, flaming chicken himself?"

Without waiting for an answer, her fingers tightened on the handle of her parasol and she pivoted on her left foot. She swung her closed parasol as one would a bat, every ounce of magic she had regained pouring into its tip.

There was an explosion of golden light as it made contact with the man standing behind her and her parasol was torn from her grip, the magic she had gathered dispersing back into the air.

"Well, damn it," Yuuka muttered, reaching up to wipe away the blood trickling down into her eye. Standing before her was the visage of someone she hadn't seen in almost eight hundred years; the face of the one being who had ever meant to kill her. The one who had succeeded in destroying her immortality. "It looks like I really do owe you a debt, you pretentious, crimson fuck."

The man's wide smile was blinding and he bowed, "It's wonderful to see you again too, Yuuka."

* * *

"Harry! You're awake! We've been so worried, haven't we Ron? How are you feeling? That girl who attacked you didn't bite you, did she?"

Harry winced as a brown, bushy blur threw its arms around him, a deluge of words following it. The blur looked at him with wide eyes, scanning every inch of his exposed skin.

"Blimey, Hermione, the poor bloke just woke up, give him some space!" Ron said, grinning as he entered the room, following Hermione at a more sedate pace. "I've got to say though, mate, as bad as you looked when you came in, the other girl looked a hell of a lot worse."

The three friends were seated on a large, unfamiliar bed that he had woken up in a few minutes prior. Although his vision was limited without his glasses, the room he was in wasn't reminiscent of the Burrow at all.

The room was far larger than Ron's room at the Burrow had been, and unlike his best friend's room which had all manners of objects scattered and stacked haphazardly about, this room seemed to be sparse, yet homely.

A small fire crackled in the corner of the room, its light casting shadows over his friend's faces. That, the night table besides him and the dark, wooden armoire against the far wall were the few furnishings in the room.

"This isn't the Burrow, where am I?" Harry asked, hand fumbling about the table beside him. His heart sank when he heard the crunch of glass. "And why do you keep going on about her biting me, Hermione?"

"Because that's how they infect you, of course." Hermione stopped him from putting on his broken glasses with a motion of her hand. "I'll just run them down to Mrs. Weasley, she'll fix them for you. We were supposed to let her know when you woke up."

"She thinks the girl that attacked you was a vampire," Ron explained after Hermione had left the room, the door swinging shut behind her with a soft click. "You should have seen my Mum when you were brought in, she was apocalyptic. I thought she was going to finish what you started and off the girl right then and there..."

Ron trailed off and his grin faded as he noticed Harry's expression. "What is it, mate?"

"I don't think the girl was a vampire, she got quite close to me and she didn't have any fangs. In all honesty I thought I was facing a female Voldemort, she was that strong, both magically and physically," Harry said, frowning. A chill appeared in his stomach, smothering the happiness he had felt upon seeing his friends.

"Was she one of those 'things' you weren't allowed to tell me about that you mentioned in your letters? Has Voldemort created some sort of clone?" Harry asked, doing his best to keep his voice level.

Ron fidgeted about, avoiding Harry's gaze before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a scrap of parchment and a muggle lighter. "Here, I need you to read this before I can explain anything," he said, handing the parchment to Harry. He gave him the lighter as well. "I don't really know how to work this thing. Hermione was supposed to be the one to do it, but I'll need you to burn it after you read it."

Harry accepted the scrap of parchment, shifting his body towards the fire so he could read the words written in a familiar, looping scrawl. The Order of the Phoenix is located at number 12 Grimmauld Place it read.

"What's the Order of the Phoenix," Harry asked, flicking the lighter on with his thumb. The parchment burned in a small plume of black smoke, disappearing in a blink of the eye.

"It's a sort of secret group led by Dumbledore. They're the ones who fought against You-Know-Who last time. Dumbledore swore us to secrecy about the Order until you were brought here, that's why we couldn't tell you anything. Sorry, Mate," Ron said.

Ron then moved off the bed, stretching his arms while yawning. "I know you're probably angry, but there was me or Hermione could have done. Whatever that charm Dumbledore put on this place made it impossible for us to talk about it. He's still here though, you could probably talk to him about it though."

"Dumbledore's here?" Harry threw the heavy bed covers off and swung his legs around. He had just placed a foot on the floor when the room door was opened.

"Dumbledore just left, Harry. He had to go prepare for the school year, dropped of our letters with your mum, Ron," Hermione said, holding the door open. Behind her was Ginny, her arms shaking under the strain of carrying a large tray that was laden down with food.

"Mum. Says. You. Need. To. Eat," Ginny said, her breath coming in gasps, teeth gritted.

Hermione beamed at him, either unaware or uncaring of Ginny glaring at her back. _It's probably the latter though, based on that smile of hers,_ Harry thought.

"Ginny offered to carry the tray for me, wasn't that sweet of her?"

"Yeah, sure. 'Offered'," Ginny muttered, dropping the tray onto the night table with a loud clatter as Hermione looked on. "Because I did that for fun."

"Now, what have we learned?" Hermione asked Ginny.

"That you're an evil, sadistic witch?" Ginny offered in response.

Hermione raised an eyebrow at Ginny's response, but shook her head. The corners of her lips twitched as Ginny sighed.

"Fine, fine. I won't chuck dung bombs at your stupid cat."

Hermione beamed once more. "I'll give you an acceptable. I'm satisfied but your delivery was sloppy."

Ginny rolled her eyes and slipped around Hermione. "Glad you're here, it's been incredibly boring around here," she said, giving Harry a quick hug before bolting out the door.

"Hermione, Ron, Mum wants you downstairs in a bit to help clean out one of the other rooms. She also says to tell Harry that he needs to rest, he's not allowed out of bed for now," Ginny called, her voice drifting back to them.

Ron grimaced, moving around the bed to snatch one of the muffins from the tray Ginny has dropped. "We've already cleaned out one room; this one," Ron explained around a mouthful of muffin, "It was a bloody mess."

Ron then shuddered, muttering something that sounded like 'Doxies'.

"They're like magical rats," Hermione said, seeing his questioning look. She then sighed and handed Ron a napkin, who nodded in thanks.

"I am sorry though, Harry. We got sworn to secrecy and either Sirius or Mrs. Weasley checked our letters before we were allowed to send them." She gave a small shrug and smiled at the way he perked up at the mention of his godfather's name. "He wanted to be here when you woke up, but Dumbledore requisitioned him to go question that girl."

"Nothing to be done there, I suppose," Harry said as he transferred a good portion of the food on the tray to a plate that had been provided.

"Don't look so glum there. Hermione said Dumbledore left, so Sirius'll likely be downstairs. Just come down after you rested a bit," Ron said, dusting his hands against his trousers. He moved around the side of the bed and placed one hand on Hermione's shoulder before tossing a thumb over his shoulder at the door. "Come on. My mum will go bonkers if we take too long. You know how she is about cleaning this place."

"Hey!" Harry said as Hermione took his plate from him and dropped it on to the far lighter tray. "I wasn't finished with that."

"Oh yes you are," she said, "I've got to go clean up a magically infested room now because someone's afraid of their mum. I'm not going to have her pester me the entire time as well. This is evidence."

Harry watched in sorrow as his half-eaten meal was carried out of the room. As if to emphasize the moment, his stomach gave a mournful gurgle. With a sigh he allowed himself to collapse back onto the bed. _It really is a nice bed, really soft,_ he thought.

Out of curiosity, he pulled up the baggy shirt he had been loaned. Tracing one of the dozens of circular marks that littered his body, he marveled at the power phoenix's possessed. The gaping wounds were now little more than faded, white dots and what had been a blinding, mind-numbing pain was now just a dull ache.

A yawn escaped him and he pulled the bed covers up further, closing his eyes. His last thought before he succumbed to exhaustion was that he would have to find a way to repay the headmaster.

* * *

Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, having made his way past the row of unnerving mounted elf heads, Harry took one look at what was going on and burst into laughter.

Ron was covered from head to toe in dust, a cardboard box with its lid thrown wide open in his arms. A group of small, blue, winged creatures was swarming about him. They dive-bombed him, but were repelled by the thick clothes he was wearing. Blood leaked from a series of small scratches on his neck and face where the creatures had met flesh.

Around him, Mrs. Weasley, Hermione and the Weasley twins battled the creatures, armed with what looked to be a black spray bottle and heavy gloves. A direct spray from Mrs. Weasley's bottle connected with one of the creatures and it froze, a startled expression on its face as it pin wheeled through the air. With a deft hand, Mrs. Weasley snatched it from the air and turned to toss into a plastic bucket in the corner.

Fred winked at him as soon as his mother's back was turned, raising a finger to his lips before slipping a pair of the stunned creature into his trouser pockets. George did the same, slipping a set of them from the bucket his mother had dumped them in once she had turned around them.

"Hey, Harry, gla- Oy! Watch out!" Shouted Ron as he was knocked over by Hermione backing into him. The box he held hit the floor hard, one of its corners crumpling under the impact. Various plates, goblets and pieces of jewelry were sent flying across the entry way with a clatter.

"Oh gosh! Ron! I'm so sorry. Look at the mess I've caused. Wait. Did we get all the doxies? Oh no, Ron, I didn't hurt you did I?" Hermione's bushy hair whipped about as she turned back and forth with great speed.

In the long hallway leading away from the entryway, the loud shrieking of a woman could be heard followed by the gruff voice of man. "Shut up, you old hag, shut up!" The man, who Harry recognized as Sirius, shouted. There was the sound of curtains being rattled and then the screaming stopped.

"Here, let me help," Harry said, dropping to his knees to join in the collection of the knick-knacks.

"Harry, it's so good to see you up and well!" Mrs. Weasley said, sweeping him up in a hug. "We were all so worried when they brought you in."

She released him and peered into the crumpled wooden box. "This should be sturdy enough. Just put the stuff back into here. I'm going to go get Sirius. Fred, George, you're in charge of cleanup. And no more sneaking Doxies, I will know!"

"Bloody hell," Fred whispered to him once his mother had left, "You think we're going to do something bad with him?"

"What are you doing with them?" He whispered back.

George grinned at him. "We're making our line of products: Skeeving Snack boxes, you take one and it'll make you temporarily ill until you get out of class. Then you just take the antidote and ta-da, you've got your whole day freed up in front of you."

"I think I'm going to need some of those this year," Ron grouched, "I don't suppose you have any on you."

"We actually do, but we don't have the antidotes working yet."

"Tch." Ron groaned and dropped his head in defeat before dropping to the floor to help with the cleanup.

The five worked in silence for several minutes. As he lay flat on the floor, stretching to reach a locket that had fallen beneath a troll leg umbrella stand, Harry couldn't help but wonder where Mrs. Weasley and Sirius were. _Does he not want to see me then? No, Hermione told me he was the one who wanted to be there when I woke up… So what is it then?_

The hair on the back was standing on end, and for a moment he considered running after Mrs. Weasley. But he dismissed the idea, he was just being paranoid. He was just about to drop the locket into the box when he heard the stairs creak and then Hermione screamed accompanied by the sound of a plate shattering.

Clenching his hands, Harry whirled around, grasping at his back pocket. His hand met empty air and his heart sank. Where was his wand? Luckily, it seemed as if the others had drawn their wands. He could hear shouting coming from deeper in the house.

The green haired, red eyed girl who had attacked him was standing on the bottom step of the stairs where he himself had been a short time ago, a preening phoenix was perched upon her shoulders. The girl's white shirt had been dyed a light reddish pink since he had last seen her and her vest was in tatters. The cut above her eye was strangely reminiscing of his own scar and he felt a moment of kinship to her. The feeling disappeared once he remembered that she was here to kill him.

 _Yuuka Kazami._

Blood pounded in his head and the whole world seemed to slow to a crawl as she stepped down into the entry way. He was unable to hear his eyes away from her as she walked towards him, heedless of the multiple wands pointed in her direction. On her shoulder the phoenix gave a piercing cry, bolstering his courage, before it rose up and disappeared in a flash of flame.

He noticed that although she held his gaze, she was swaying as she walked.

"Peace, human magicians," Yuuka said, stopping less than a foot from Harry. "An accord has been reached. I am no longer your enemy… For now. You may attack me at your own peril."

Her hand reached out and he felt her pluck the locket from his nerveless hand. The golden locket glittered as she cradled it in both hands. A stylized 'S' made of emeralds was revealed running up its center as she turned it over.

"I have been told that you are an orphan, Harry Potter," Yuuka said, "It was something that relieved me greatly, to hear of a similarity between our stories, for I was beginning to fear that I was mistaken in choosing you as my target."

There was an emotion in her voice as she spoke that he recognized, but couldn't believe was coming from his attempted murderer. _Is she speaking to me with fondness?!_

"I remember very little of my childhood. So long ago did it happen," she said, letting the locket slip from her hand until it dangled from her fingertips by its golden chain.

The look she gave him was piercing and the locket was memorizing as it slowly rotated in her grasp, beams of light reflecting through its gems.

"Tell me, Harry Potter, lost half of my soul. Do you recognize the most prized possession of our mother?"

* * *

 **Another week, another chapter. Hope it's to your liking, RM**

 **Beta read by Gabriel's Wings - Love Squares**


	4. Chapter 4: The Definition of Sanity

**For the Love of Flowers**

 **Disclaimer: All rights and content within this story belong to their original owners; I own nothing.**

* * *

 **Chapter 4: The Definition of Sanity**

* * *

The head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement sighed as she signed her name with a flourish before adding the document to the already towering, ever growing stack besides her. A quick glance at her mounted wall clock showed that it was a little after five in the evening, ten minutes before the meeting she had been waiting all day before.

Both the thought of the person she was to meet with and the subsequent topic that they had to discuss sent chills up her spine, but for different reasons.

Two days prior she had dispatched a squadron of aurors to deal with an abnormal amount of spell fire that had been reported from a muggle residential area. Although the entire department was short-staffed as the amount of people that both chose a a career in law enforcement and were capable of completing their training camp became few and far between, she had doubled the normal amount of respondents when they had learned just _who_ was casting the majority of the spells.

She'd also added Senior Auror Kingsley as an additional, thirteenth member in the hopes that both his years of experience would help control the situation and that he would report back to the vigilante organization he was in and prevent the meeting she was having today from happening in the first place.

It turned out to be one of the worst mistakes she had made in the entirety career as the squad was slaughtered to a man alongside numerous civilian muggles. The department had been working alongside the ministry obliviators and the muggle prime minister to cover the event up.

A stack of letters prepared by her predecessor that should have been sent out the day she had learned of her aurors' deaths was burning a hole in her pocket.

 _I'll be damned if I'm just going so sit back and have an owl deliver these._ She set aside her quill, the urge to work leaving her, and pulled out one of her desk drawers. She fished out a small, nondescript box and popped it open, pulling out her desired object before replacing the box back in its drawer. A tap of her wand had the tip of the object smoldering and she brought it to her lips, coughing as smoke filled her lungs.

There was a frantic knock at her office door. The woman looked at her cigarette, sighed and gave a quite cough before snuffing it out. "Come in," she called, tossing the wasted cigarette into the rubbish bin below her desk.

Her door swung half way open, admitting her secretary. Shadows hung beneath his eyes and his face was pale and drawn from the sleep she knew he was lacking. Adjusting his robes even as he entered the room, the man laid several folders on her deck. "Here are the files you asked for, Director," the man said. He glanced over his shoulder before he turned back to her, his voice hesitant. "Did you know you had a man sitting in the lobby, Ma'am?"

The director grimaced, sparing a brief glance at the bauble that had spinning on her desk for the past hour. "Ah...Yes, I did. You may send him in now. Thanks, William."

William gave her a nod before holding the door ajar, allowing the man who had been in the anteroom to enter. He then slipped out behind him, the swinging shut.

"Amelia!" The man said, smiling, his arms spread in greeting.

"Albus," she said with a curt nod, "have a seat. And not with one of those plush arm chairs I know you like, one of mine."

The man raised an eyebrow but acquiesced, pulling out one of the straight backed wooden chairs and took a seat.

"Now," she said, folding her hands together, "give me one reason that I shouldn't have you carted off to Azkaban this instant, Albus."

The man, Albus Dumbledore, man of many titles and known for having one of the best poker faces in Britain, paled at her question. "Azkaban?!" He said, spluttering. "These are troubling times indeed if people are being arrested for little to no reason."

 _You want to play that game, eh?_ Amelia frowned and reached for the second folder in the stack that William had brought her. She opened it and turned it towards Dumbledore, showing hims its contents. She stabbed at one of the pictures with a finger, "Do you know who this is?"

Dumbledore shook his head, but his hands tightened on the arms of his chair.

"Seventeen people, Albus! Twelve aurors and five muggles killed, one hospitalized! That girl that you're sheltering killed seventeen people!"

"I can assure you, I am doing no such thing. While I do recognize her, I am not sheltering her underneath my roof."

Amelia glared at Dumbledore and shrugged, "Alright, so one of your Order members is sheltering her. Who is it? Tell me now and I'll let them off with a fine. If I have to get a warrant from the Minister and find her manually, they'll be sharing her punishment."

Dumbledore raised his hands in a placating gesture. "I'd even help you look, nobody in my little club would shelter such a person. It goes against everything we stand for."

Amelia groaned, letting her head fall into her hands. "Why can't you work with me, Dumbledore?" She asked, "The girl's a mass murderer and a menace to our society, to everyone. She's worse thing we've had to deal with in the past decade."

She flicked through the stack that William had given her before pulling out the third from the bottom. Spreading it open, she pointed out each individual point as she spoke. "Massive amounts of magical power and skilled in wandless magic. An affinity for unaided flight. Sadistic tendencies. An unprecedented physical strength."

"What are you planning to do once you arrest her?"

"Standard procedure. She'd receive a trial and then if found guilty I would personally ship her off to Azkaban for the rest of her life." _That's a lie, she would be executed on the spot, but he doesn't need to know that._

Dumbledore's fingers taped out a steady rhythm against the arm of his chair, an action that kept drawing her eyes much to her annoyance. "What if I told you that none of the girl's actions were done under her own will?"

She snorted at that before bursting into a gut busting laugh. "Kingsley reported that she was taunting the squad as she fought. You expect me to believes that she was suffering from the _Imperious_ curse?" She asked between gasps of breath.

She sobered up as Dumbledore gave her a glance reminiscent of her Hogwarts days, his eyes twinkling. "Ah, but I never said it was a _wizard_ that was controlling her. What do you remember of vampires? I believe the _Daily Prophet_ published an article on them not too long ago."

"Impossible. Asides from the fact that it's illegal for a vampire to enthrall someone anywhere in the EU, they can't enthrall someone stronger than themselves. If you're insinuating that we've got a vampire that's capable of enthralling someone as strong as her, we've got bigger problems."

Dumbledore shook his head, "Please, Amelia, contain your questions until the end. I was an afforded the opportunity to speak with her for a moments time before she disappeared and I believe I managed to piece together a vague picture over what has happened to the poor girl. From what I could tell, she was taken and converted into a vampire at an extremely young age, before being enthralled. As she grew into her magical maturity, I believe she grew too powerful to control and the vampire switched to a more subtle form of control: psychological conditioning."

"Physiological conditioning? Asides from the fact that a lot of the vampires in Britain sided with You-Know-Who, what would they gain from conditioning a young girl to kill one teenage wizard, especially a being as powerful as her?" She asked, her mind whirling as she attempted to find the thread that connected the unknown attacker to one of Britain's biggest celebrities. Her heart sank as she stumbled upon one.

"No," she whispered, shaking her head. "No, no, no. How close?"

The moment she saw Dumbledore's sad smile, she wanted to reach into her desk and pull out her comfort pack.

"It's probably the worst case scenario in terms of political fallout," he confessed, reaching out to turn the picture of their subject towards her, "Let me introduce you to the self proclaimed Yuuka Kazami, Harry's sister."

* * *

Harry affixed his gaze upon his laden plate, fork clutched in hand, unable to muster desire nor energy to eat. It was so tempting to glance up and across the table to where he knew _she_ sat _,_ watching, appraising him her cold, blood red eyes. Instead he chose to bury his questions and curiosity, pushing around the food on his plate and taking a small bite whenever Mrs. Weasley craned her head to look at him.

The rope of tension that stretched between him and _her_ seemed to have infected the rest of the room as silence prevailed within the cavernous basement kitchen of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. The only sounds were the soft clank of cutlery and the occasional, murmured request for more of this or that, something to which Mrs. Weasley would grant with a quiet reply of her own.

Closing his eyes for a moment in resignation, he set his fork down and glanced towards the far end of the table. Just as he had expected, _she_ was watching him, her lips curved as she observed the expression on his face, a steaming cup of tea cradled in her hands. With what he assumed was deliberate slowness, she took a sip from her cup before placing it down, its clatter drawing the heads of many.

She smiled at him as she cupped her hands before her chest and bowed her head. When she looked up and opened her hands, a small, pink flower rested between them. She then winked at him, crushing the flower in her hands and brought the crushed mess to her lips. Three solitary petals floated across the table in silence, every person in the room's attention fixed upon them. The three petals landed on the table next to his hand and faded.

The three flowers that grew from the wood of the table were smaller than the original Yuuka had created, but were no less vibrant. No less real.

 _A gift,_ she mouthed to him, a pleased expression upon her face.

"What was that? What did you just do?" Demanded Moody. He had left his seat against the wall and his wand, which had been held at his side, was now pressed against the back of Yuuka's head.

Harry glanced down at the flowers by his hand, they swayed, moved by an invisible breeze as Yuuka's pleased expression fell from her face. "They were a gift," he said, reaching out to touch one of the flowers. It's thin stalk curled his finger before releasing him. An impossibility, yet it had happened, "but they are more aren't they?"

Yuuka nodded to him and winked once more, her smile returning as she picked up her cup of tea. Behind her, Moody's face was stormy but he returned to his seat with a grumble. His wand, however, remained pointed at the smiling girl's back.

"Amazing," whispered Hermione from beside him, staring at Yuuka's gift. "These are amazing."

"Huh?" Harry questioned, whispering back, his voice just as quiet. "They're just flowers, Hermione."

"Just flowers? It's not the flowers!" Hermione hissed, her voice no longer as quiet. He noted that they had garnered some attention, Ron, Ginny and even Ron's elder brother, Bill, were listening in with rapt attention.

"It's the magic. You can't conjure living things, Harry. It goes against the law of magic. And she did it wandlessly, without an incantation? Do you know how hard that is?"

"Difficult, I'm guessing?" He asked, bemused by Hermione's sudden boldness. By the voice that came from the stairs, it was apparent he wasn't the only one who felt that way either.

"Things never change, do they, Hermione? You sit in the same room as a girl who looks a few years older than you at most and is an acknowledged murderer and the only thing you're interested in is her magic."

Hermione blushed at Sirius's words, hiding her face in her hands as Sirius took the empty seat besides Harry.

"What did Dumbledore say?" Harry asked his godfather, handing him the plate that Mrs. Weasley had just handed him.

Sirius's face soured as he took a bite from his plate, thanking Mrs. Weasley before turning to face Harry. "Dumbledore was vague...He confirmed that there was a contract of sorts formed and that she's no longer a threat, but he didn't say anymore than that. His meeting with the ministry did go better than he had hoped for though."

Sirius pulled two letters from his belt and tossed them across the table where they slid to a stop before Yuuka. "They're both for you, one's from the ministry regarding your temporary sentence, the other's your Hogwarts letter."

There was a choking sound from the other side of the table as Ron clutched his chest, his sister pounding on his back.

Yuuka gave the choking boy a curious look as she tore open her first letter. "What is this Hogwarts you speak of?"

It was Mrs. Weasley that answered her. The woman's face was bright red as she rose from seat. "Has the headmaster gone senile," she exclaimed, slamming one hand down onto the table. "I'm not letting my children go to a school where something such as you is going to be roaming around free."

"I do not understand your objections. I would be just as shackled there as I would be here," Yuuka said, slipping the folded up letter she had been reading into her shirt pocket. Her unopened Hogwarts letter followed a moment later.

"Is it perhaps because yourself would not be there to restrain me, should I choose to harm them?" Yuuka asked, a slight widening of her eyes betraying her sudden realization.

A hand placed on arm of his irritate wife by Mr. Weasley had her sit back down. Around them, their children shuffled about in their seats, unease and discomfort plain upon their faces. Even the Weasley's eldest child, Bill, seemed uncomfortable with his mother's declaration, his fork pushing around the dessert on his plate without actually lifting anything.

 _Sirius doesn't seem overly concerned about the fact that Yuuka would be at school with me. Is it because she's like my sister?_ Harry stabbed at the remaining quarter of his peach cobbler with his fork. His thrust tore through the pastry's soft crust and skated against the silver plate. His actions drew the attention of Sirius, who raised a questioning brow.

He just gave a shake of his head, adverting his eyes. This wasn't the place to talk about the thoughts that had been rampaging through his head the past few hours.

Whenever he closed his eyes, the earlier events of the day stood out at the forefront of his mind. He still remembered the way the locket she'd held had gleamed in the evening sun; he could still remember the way blood had pounded in his head, time seeming to slow to a halt around as her words had registered with him. _Our Mother._

The implications behind them had been numerous and the questions that had been raised, countless. Where had she been? What had her life been like? Who had raised her?

The bitter irony of the situation had him wanting to lash out. His entire life he had imagined what life away from the Dursley's, with his real family would be like. And while the Weasley's kind and loving, they weren't his family, they were Ron's.

Two years prior had been a roller coaster of emotions as he had learned of his godfather's existence, his supposed crimes and then eventually, his innocence. To find that someone who cared for him would be unable to serve as his guardian and savior had been an unpleasant revelation.

And then there was the girl, whatever she was, that called herself Yuuka Kazami, his sister, When he had first seen her, he had known in an instant that she was a magical like him. His pleasant surprise at learning she was there to find him of all people had turned to horror when he learned of her reason: to kill him, to destroy his soul and erase him from existence.

The world truly was an unfair and cruel place.

The piece of cobbler that he had been bringing to his lips fell back to his plate, his fork after it. "I think I'm done for tonight," he said pushing away his plate, his voice a whisper. He ignored the questions and glances of his friends as he walked to the kitchen door, pulled it open and left.

One of the last things he saw within the kitchen before the door swung shut was that Yuuka had disappeared, a flower identical to the one she had made for him left in her place.

 _I really hope she hasn't killed someone, but I do wonder where she went_.

He blinked and shook his head when he realized that the thought had not bothered him as much as it should have.

* * *

His question about her whereabouts were answered by complete accident a few steps after he had cleared the final steps leading up from the basement.

She had tucked herself away into a tall-backed armchair, one knee drawn up to her chest while the other dangled down, the toes of her bare foot drawing faint lines through the dust covered floor. The bloodstained and torn clothes she had been wearing at dinner were gone, replaced by a pale, pink nightgown. The locket she had held before him with such reverence earlier now hung from her neck and her ever present parasol was open, shadowing her face and upper body despite the fact that it was dark, inside and out.

 _It's hard to believe that this was the girl responsible for so much death,_ Harry thought, frozen on the spot. The locket resting on her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, matching the movements of her chest. It was a surreal moment and he found himself paralyzed.

He was unsure of how much time had passed, but it was with a heavy reluctance and a great exertion of will that he tore his gaze away and turned to the next flight of stairs. "Good night, sister," he whispered, starting his way up the stairs, one hand upon the handrail to steady himself.

It was the suddenness of the boom of thunder and the patter of rain upon glass that startled him and lead to him missing his next step. He fell backwards with a cry, his grip upon the handrail broken. The pain he expected as he fell backwards, however, never came. Instead he groaned as his fall came to a sudden halt when a grip of iron closed around his arm.

"I am not your sister," A voice said from right before him.

He swallowed the dread welling up in his throat and forced his eyes open. "Thanks for the save," he said, still held suspended in her one-handed grasp.

Yuuka's red eyes stared back into his own green, green hair covered one eye as she tilted her head so that she matched his own, awkward angle. She then nodded and dropped him to the ground. "Do not let it happen again, I will be displeased if I must waste my timing saving you from pointless self-harm."

He rubbed at the spot where his back had made contact with the edge of the steps when she had dropped him and winced. _She calls that saving? The house is probably charmed to make sure nobody gets hurt._

"What do you mean you're not my sister, what else could you be if we share the same mother?" He asked as she walked back to her chair and retrieved the parasol that lay discarded on the ground.

"Tell me, do you human magicians know of time travel?" She asked him, smiling when he nodded. "Good, that will make things simpler. To put it bluntly, you and I are one and the same. One soul stretched across two bodies due to the interference with the flow of time."

"That's hard to believe," he said. He then asked, "Is that why you tried to kill me?"

Yuuka giggled at his question, hiding her mouth behind one of he hands as her shoulders shook. "There was no trying, my dear alternate. I was _going_ to kill you. I merely took too long playing and ended up harming myself."

She moved towards him, her bare feet making no sounds upon the wooden floorboards. Although her laughter had faded, the smile upon her face had not as she sat down close to him. _Too close,_ he thought as she leaned in, placing her head by his ear.

"Tell me," she whispered, the feel of her breath upon his neck sending shivers down his spine, "Do you fear the dark, Harry Potter? Do you fear oblivion, the endless sleep that awaits us beyond the veil? Tell me, o' alternate of mine, do you fear death?"

It was impossible to breathe, his breath sticking in his throat. He could feel his heart pounding against the confines of his chest, desperate to break free of its cage. And deep within the recesses of his mind, his very being, he could feel _something_ answering her call.

"I have been shackled," she whispered into his ear once more, her hair hanging down and brushing the back of his neck, "Bound. Helpless. No more powerful than a mere animal."

Before he could react, she had moved from beside him to in front of him and was leaning down, as if to kiss him. _Move. Move!_ He shouted within the prison of his mind, shutting his eyes against his oncoming doom. There was a pause and then he felt something, warm and wet, press against his cheek.

"Shh. Shh, I understand," she murmured, her hand cupped against his cheek. It was then he realized that he was shaking. "The same blood flows through our veins, child. The idea of your enemy, especially one so far beyond you such as I, lying broken and battered at your feet is exciting, is it not?"

"N-no," he stuttered out, "That's insane. Nobody would want that."

"Liar," she cooed and he felt her flick his nose, "You may deny it as much as you want, but I can feel your blood roaring, pulsing. Now, open your eyes, child. You're being rude."

There was a sharp, stinging pain in the side of his neck and his eyes shot open, Yuuka winking at him as he did so.

"Do you see?" She asked, holding up her hand. One of her nails was dripping red. "There is no confusion," she said, bringing it to her lips and shuddering, "Your presence, it cries out to me; your blood, it heals me. That you would still deny our connection is insulting. Face your fate with pride."

Her hand reached out and two fingers pressed down upon his brow, closing his eyes. He felt her lips press against his own for a fleeting moment before her whispered, melodious voice filled his ear once more.

"Fate has bought you a year, do not squander it. I shall be waiting; I shall be watching, and should I find you lacking, our game will begin anew once more. And this time, I promise you, we shall not be interrupted by those pests you call friends.

You have a year, Harry Potter, do not disappoint me."

* * *

 **AN: Hello everyone, it's been more than a week hasn't it? Sorry for the delay, I ended up falling ill with a kidney infection and haven't been in the proper shape to write. Do not fear, we shall be returning to our regularly scheduled programming starting with next week (I need to re-look over my notes and see where I left off).**

 **I just want to drop this here to answer a few PM's I got: I'm attempting to write this story from a Third Person, Limited perspective. That means that what a character says, IF they're not lying, is what they believe, not necessarily what is true. If you have any questions, let me know and I'll do my best to answer them**

 **A small gift in exchange: Next time on 'For the Love of Flowers' - Diagon Alley, two-legged Dragons and explanations.**

 **Until next time,**

 **RM**


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